Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

3-6-2012

SSRN Discipline

ARN Subject Matter eJournals; Industrial Organization & Regulation eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Tax Law & Policy eJournals; ERN Subject Matter eJournals; Financial Economics Network; CGN Subject Matter eJournals; European Private & Public Law eJournals; Economics Research Network; Legal Scholarship Network; Corporate, Securities & Finance Law eJournals; Banking & Financial Institutions eJournals; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; FEN Subject Matter eJournals; Corporate Governance Network; Auditing, Litigation & Tax eJournals; International Law & Trade eJournals; Accounting Research Network

Abstract

Onshore jurisdictions such as the United States United Kingdom France and Germany are critical of offshore financial centers OFCs such as Bermuda the Cayman Islands and the Channel Islands Arguments against OFCs include claims that their regulatory oversight is lax allowing fraud and criminal activity In this article we present crossjurisdictional data showing that OFCs are not lax We also provide qualitative analyses of regulatory effectiveness demonstrating that inputbased measures of regulation are inappropriate metrics for comparing jurisdictions Based on both quantitative input measures and a qualitative assessment we reject the onshore critique of OFCs as bastions of laxity

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